Hong Kong strike back in the rain

Hong Kong skipper Babar Hayat played a captain’s innings, hitting half a century to lead the visitors to a 39-run victory over Kenya in the second match of their ICC World Cricket League Championship meeting at Nairobi Gymkhana on Sunday.

Kenya had defeated Hong Kong by three wickets on Friday at the same venue. Sunday’s match was affected by intermittent rainfall that caused the game to be delayed for three hours. The match started at 1 pm instead of 10am and was reduced from a 50-over affair to 31 overs.

Rains again saw the game later reduced to 25 overs using the Duckworth Lewis method as Hong Kong ran out winners by 39 runs.

Kenya won the toss and put Hong Kong in to bat first. The islanders started their innings on a sour note when Lucas Oluoch clean-bowled opening batsman, Kinchit Shah for a single run, with a score of two runs showing on the scoreboard.

Hong Kong made a remarkable recovery when Hayat joined Christopher Carter (41 off 63 balls), who opened batting for the side  at the crease and the duo put on a second wicket stand of 119 that was broken  by Oluoch who bowled out Carter.

Nizakat Khan with an unbeaten 20 off 12 balls, and Anshuman  Rath (3 off 6 balls) were the other batsmen who contributed runs for Hong Kong before the skies opened again forcing the game to be halted for nearly an hour.

At the time Hong Kong were 148 for 4 in 25.1 overs.

Oluoch had bagged three wickets for 29. Nelson Odhiambo (1/33) was the only other Kenyan wicket taker. The game was delayed for nearly one hour because of rain again and when action resumed, it was reduced to 25 overs, with Kenya given a target of 173 to win.